


Initiation Rites

by yellow_caballero



Series: Scott's Life is Hard [2]
Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men Evolution
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Hannukah, Judaism, Kitty Pryde is a genius and uses this genius for evil, Peter Parker and Kitty Pryde are best friends, Peter Parker is a genius and should act like it, Scott Summers is terrifiying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 03:01:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10732782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellow_caballero/pseuds/yellow_caballero
Summary: Peter and Kitty just wanted to get wasted on vodka and pass out in order to deal with the holiday stress. But when Peter ends up having to assimilate into the X-Men household to escape the red-tinted glasses of the law, it becomes increasingly difficult to leave.Or, Peter and Kitty accidentally get drunk, get adopted, get panicked, and get in trouble.





	Initiation Rites

**Author's Note:**

> Kitty and Peter are 17 in this one, so it's after the first chapter of the first series but before Erik moves in.

Peter woke up in a brief flash of total confusion, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. 

A better superhero would have probably jumped onto his feet and started waving his energy beams around, but Peter just turned over groggily and found a snoring Kitty dribbling drool down her chin and clenching a small bottle in the other. 

Oh, right. 

He didn’t normally run into Kitty when it wasn’t a slightly dangerous, but not overly world threatening situation, but they just so happened to catch each other hopping on the same rooftop today. There wasn’t an emergency and an hour bus ride really wasn’t really something you did so you have a slice of New York’s best pizza - well, okay, there was that one time, but he was really freaking hungry - but apparently she was just ditching to go see a concert in New York. Freaking typical. 

“Is it really ditching if it’s winter break?” Peter asked, breathing on his hands and rubbing them slightly together. Peter had filched some of the Shocker’s insulated gear last time he collared him and made this awesome winter suit out of it, but something about the suit just made him feel like it was evil and was going to eat him any second. The taint of incompetent supervillainy. 

“It’s ditching if nobody knows you’re here,” Kitty said, with a somewhat sketchy expression. “Also if, uh, you aren’t allowed to go to the concert.”

“Professor Xavier doesn’t really seem the type to get worked up about a concert.” 

Kitty, looked even more sketchy. “Don’t ask.” 

Peter broke into a large grin. “Oh, I see how it is,” he teased, “your brother said you weren’t allowed to go? What is he, 19?”

“19 years of evil and a really dissapointed expression!” Kitty hissed. “Keep it down will you, he might hear us.”

They were on a twenty story rooftop. 

“What did he do, bug your clothing?”

Kitty, impossibly, looked sketchier. 

Well, Peter would love to say he didn’t really have time for this, but he totally did. He had been planning to go sneak off with Johnny and steal Dr. Richard’s dimensional transporter so they could probably do something extremely irresponsible with it, but Johnny had called him on a frizzing communicator and yelled that he had been found out and to save himself while he still could. Peter kind of doubted Dr. Storm could ground somebody whose face and age she had no idea of, but he wasn’t willing to take that chance.

So now he was left with a week where he had promised Aunt May he was swanning off on a non-traditional Christmas roadtrip to meet some friends out of state, and now he had to go home and explain that the mysterious snowstorm right outside of New York was too bad and slink into his dirty bedroom in defeat. Hello, Cupcake Wars and the sweet feeling of knowing he totally could have been in a neighboring dimension right now. 

Something occurred to Peter. If it had been anyone else he wouldn’t even have asked, but it was a very well kept secret that Kitty Pryde was somewhat of a delinquent. Her valley girl persona kept suspicion turned well away from her, but Peter was one of the few privy to the fact that she had been a bad influence on Kurt and not the other way around. Kurt was kind of a pushover, so he ended up taking the blame for the corruption of innocent, gum popping teenagers. 

“Did you even buy tickets to this concert, or were you just planning on phasing in?”

Kitty’s unbelievably shifty look was beginning to ripen into guilt. 

“Did your brother even know this when he said you couldn’t come?”

The guilt flower was blooming in the springtime of youth. 

Peter sighed, and sat down next to her on the eaves of the rooftop. It was kind of worrying how many of his friends were completely fine with letting a strong gust of wind toss them twenty stories below. Kitty had said that she had fallen off a hundred story building before and phased through the ground just fine, but Peter had no idea what happened if you went straight into the ground with a hundred stories of momentum. Probably nothing good. 

Eventually she sighed, kicking her heels against the wall. “I just needed a break, okay? Scott’s freaking himself out over Christmas and he’s running himself so ragged it’s getting obnoxious. He’s making me bake, Peter! I don’t know why he’s acting like Christmas is such a big deal. He does this every freaking time.”

Peter blinked. “So you’re an hour away from him sulking because he’s asking you to do chores?”

“Too many chores.” 

It was sometimes hard not to be the dick that was constantly reminding people that they shouldn’t have parental problems because 3/4ths of his parents were dead. People learned really freaking quickly in middle school not to tell him any yo momma jokes but it didn’t mean he wasn’t sick of listening to Flash Thompson complain about how his dad wouldn’t buy him the new Air Jordans. That was like double the things Peter didn’t have. 

Finally, Peter settled on saying, “I don’t know that much about your brother, but from what you’ve said it seems he didn’t really have a whole ton of Christmases growing up. I mean, not to get all psychoanalytic on you or anything, but cut him some slack?”

“You have not had to put up tinsel for three hours,” Kitty said dangerously. “And yeah, I know. I get it. He does throw rocking Christmases. I just want him to chill out sometimes, you know? And I’m cooped up in the house all day with all this craziness, I just wanted to get out a little.” Kitty trailed off, looking somewhat pensieve. Then she brightened. “Hey, why don’t we do something fun! Like go get shawarma or something.”

“In costume?”

“Well, like, it doesn’t have to be in costume.”

“If I’m in costume they give me free schwarma. You got no idea how many businesses owe me favors. Also I think they think I’m too skinny.”

“Fuck it, we’re going in costume.”

By the end of the day Peter and Kitty had takeout stuffed inside a webbing bag, had snuck into several different concerts, fed pigeons with naan and the sweet substance of the stares of passerby, and made fun of the fashion of people walking on the street. Kitty had very low opinions of leather and Peter had done this so many times with MJ that he was actually pretty good at it by now.

They had eventually decided against throwing rocks at the Fox News Headquarters out of fear that it would be labelled a mutant/Spider-man terrorist attack and have them gas NYC or something, but they did make stupid faces at J. Jonah Jameson. Peter made the stupid and slightly insulting hand gestures, Kitty made the stupid faces. Robbie had been giving a report behind Jonah and was keeping an excellent poker face. Robbie had an absolute immaculate poker face given that he dealt with Jameson all day, but Peter had finally learned to recognize the slight tremble of his chin that meant that he probably wanted to give a laughing fit but wanted to keep his job even more. Of course, Peter could have sworn that he saw him mouth ‘Get your time card in by Monday’, but he was probably completely mistaken in every appropriate way. 

By the time they had collapsed snickering on the roof of the roof of the Daily Bugle, Kitty was nearly breathless with laughter. She shoved Peter lightly, and Peter shoved her back, and then they were grappling and trying to give Peter a noogie. He had super strength and Kitty didn’t even have any special strength, this was  _ so  _ unfair. 

“Scott made me have sparring matches with Rogue until I learned how to phase each individual limb at the drop of a hat and Rogue got over completely hating to touch people.”

“Jesus I am so jealous.” Peter paused. “Does he know you’re bisexual?”

The next pause was somewhat incriminating.

There was a grunt from the other side of the roof, and Kitty and Peter quickly looked up. 

There was a homeless man, stubble ratty and hair slightly messed, holding a bottle of vodka and a dumbfounded expression. Kitty was biting her lip and not making eye contact, but Peter just waved. 

“Hey, Rocky, that you?”

Rocky’s yellow teeth broke into a wide grin. “Spidey...it’s been too long! That attack, the big gray fella. You saved my life, Spidey!”

Peter laughed, striking a pose. “All in a night’s work, Rocky. You making it to that shelter okay?”

Rocky nodded fervently. He looked to his bottle, looked to Kitty, looked to Peter, then looked back at his bottle. Finally he held it out to Peter by the handle. “Vodka?”

Peter and Kitty looked at each other. 

The businessmen were beginning to spill out into the street, schoolchildren and teenagers joining them in flashes of bright backpacks and crip Wall Street suits. Kitty and Peter knew it was time for Kitty to head back if they didn’t want her brother to flip his lid, but they couldn’t help staring at the fresh jug of vodka in Peter’s careful sticky grip. They held it like a prized possession, careful of its magnificence. Like mana from heaven, the forbidden dropped into their adoring laps. 

It wasn’t as if they had never drank before. It was just, well - free vodka!

Propping her hands on her hips, Kitty have the jug a considering look. Finally she said, “Well, no way we can’t have fun with this. You got anything to do tomorrow?”

“Are you kidding? I got nothing to do for the next week.”

“Neat. You’re coming home with me.”

It was remarkably easy for Kitty to sneak onto busses, sneak into bus stations, sneak onto more busses, and sneak into her mansion home. Peter wasn’t that bad at it either, but he wasn’t as ridiculously talented and mutated as Kitty. He was beginning to understand how she was this much of a delinquent. Who didn’t like to do things that were easy for them and they were good at?

The X-Mansion was incredibly ridiculous. X-Mansion was an appropriate word for how gigantic, grandiose, and plain old weird it was. Kitty whispered that it was far more intimidating in the dark due to the looming shadows and the statues throwing odd, glistening figures in the night, but that honestly didn’t help things much. It apparently took the younger kids weeks to muster up the courage to go downstairs for a drink of water at night, although it cut down on inappropriate midnight snacking. Kitty’s room was on the second floor (The Residential Wing, holy fuck), above a garage that had at least five incredible cars that had Peter salivating even in the dark, and through a living room that was probably as big was Peter’s entire house. And he lived in Queens, not freaking Manhattan. 

Their footsteps echoed through the empty halls, and they jumped onto the plush runners in the hallway whenever possible. Kitty phased them both through the garage, a tickling sensation that felt like your foot falling asleep, and they jumped the concrete steps into the washer room with like two washers (“And even that’s not enough.”) and at least five bags of dirty laundry. Through the washer room into a small dining room, littered with bowls still lined with small pools of milk and spoons stuck into hot chocolate rimmed mugs, a fervent dash through said gigantic living room  and up through a small winding staircase after a mad silent sprint through the gigantic living room. They darted up some smaller, winding steps, through a long hallway, turned left and went through another hallway (“We’re taking the discreet way, it normally doesn’t take so long to get here”) and spilled into a nondescript room that proved to be Kitty’s. Kitty kept Peter’s hand clenched in hers the whole time, and by the time she flipped on the light they broke into quickly stifled laughter. 

“Oh, man,” Peter choked, “that was so terrifying. I thought Wolverine was going to eat me, oh my god.” The adrenaline was heady, the sweet jump of his heart a welcome reprieve of relatively benign adrenaline instead of his usual ‘holy shit’ adrenaline. 

“Nah, Logan’s out with Laura.” Kitty was still snickering, rubbing her eyes in adjustment to the light. “See, nothing to worry about. Besides our telepaths. But if they’re not asleep they’re playing mind numbing video games so no issues here.”

Peter sighed. “Give me that vodka.”

It was probably one of the funner night of his life. He used to do this kind of thing with Harry and Liz and MJ all the time, sitting around late into the night shooting the shit and talking about comic books, but everyone had grown apart in the last year due to various and assorted super villain traumas. He couldn’t tell his friends what was going on in his life or what he was thinking, because he was thinking about Spider-Man and his rapidly healing cracked ribs. He couldn’t talk about what he’s been up to, because what he’s been up to is Spider-Man and cracking his ribs. He couldn’t talk about what he’s been upset about, what horrible thing happened, what’s eating him alive. Because it was Spider-Man, and the green, cackling monster who gave him cracked ribs. 

He didn’t even know how to tell Harry. 

Kitty had to deal with people throwing food at her head every day, with nobody liking her anymore. Peter’s aunt is getting seriously worried about him. Kitty is worried about the future of mutants, how it seems like things will never get better for them, and that she’s afraid they may be rebuilding more Sentinels. The Daily Bugle has literally accused Peter of being a communist and rigging the election. Kitty hasn’t dated since Lance Alvers, and he was a dick, what the hell. Peter can talk for twenty minutes about MJ’s hair in the sunlight, and proceeded to do so. Kitty missed her parents. Peter missed his Uncle. 

It had been fairly late into the night by the time they passed out, but from the way Peter was feeling now it probably translated into ‘way not enough sleep’. It took a good five minutes for Peter to even summon the energy to get up and stumble to the bathroom, washing his face in the mirror and gulping down some water. 

“Wait,” Peter said to himself, “I’m not even hungover. Yeah, spider-metabolism!”

The well-sized bedroom was draped in a soft yellow in the morning, throwing the light blue comforter and the messy computer desk into sharp relief. There was a dorm-style round chair tucked into a corner with a messy pile of clothes thrown into it, a bookshelf taut with textbooks that didn’t seem to be for any of her classes and that had works like ‘fluid mechanics’ on them. Peter made a note to steal those later. There were various girly paraphernalia, way more than MJ’s room. Peter was abruptly thankful for the quick overnight bad he had retrieved from one of his emergency spots before he ran off with Kitty, as otherwise he would have a real hard time explaining the spandex. Well, probably not as weird as most mansions, but Kitty had informed him primly that their suits were far more durable than spandex and more closely resembled kevlar than anything else. Kitty didn’t need the body armor, she explained, but baby losers like Kurt definitely did. He said it made his fur itch. 

Peter sat silently on the floor cushions and messy nest of blankets where he had passed out, watching Kitty snore. He picked up a book from her bookshelf-  _ Theory and Mechanics of C++  _ \- and settled himself to reading until the sun climbed higher. A tight tension in his chest was gone, an exhale when he hadn’t known he had been holding an inhale, and he let himself sit in the light with a friend for a few more minutes. 

Kitty woke up eventually, groaning and turning in a rough grumble, and Peter got up to fetch her some water. He had promised himself while he was waiting that he wouldn’t act smug but he was totally smug and would shout it to the world. 

“Rough night?” 

Kitty drank her water resentfully. 

“Aww, does your head hurt?”

“I will phase this cup if you do not shut up.”

“Ouch, touchy.”

After a few minutes where Kitty made it very clear she was dying and that this was worse than that one time the Juggernaut threw her by surprise attack into a wall, she stumbled over to the bathroom to get changed from her PJs and Peter surreptitiously tried to straighten his very rumpled hoodie and jeans.  

She came back in yawning, and they silently cleaned up the room and sprayed some febreeze to pretend that alcohol had never disgraced these premises. Apparently someone named Rahne would be able to tell anyway, but she was privy to the secrets of a greal deal of this house and nobody dared to cross her. 

They looked at each other for a long moment.

“Are you really going to marry MJ in four months when you turn 18 and that you two have already picked out a ring?”

“I am not ashamed of this and soon everyone will know,” Peter said firmly. “But, uh, don’t tell anyone, they’ll make fun of us. Also we’re eloping because we can’t afford an actual wedding with actual hos de vours, whatever those are.”

“Make me your best man and done.”

“Harry’s my best man.” Peter paused, a pang echoing through his heart. “Johnny’s the best man and he will probably fight you for it.”

“Best woman.”

“Can’t have a best man and best woman.”

“Groomswoman. Of honor.”

“Oh my god, fine.”

Kitty beamed. “Want to go home yet?”

“I did not go through all the effort of sneaking onto a bus to Westchester, sneaking into a gigantic X-Mansion stuffed with mutants, and getting drunk with you to go home now.” Peter paused. “But, uh, maybe we can pretend that you invited me to come over ages ago and that I only just now showed up or something.”

“Sounds good. I need to finish putting my face on. It’s still pretty early and there’s no school, I think you can probably sneak down the hall and go out the window before Ororo or Scott notices you.”

Peter saluted. Kitty saluted. They broke out into giggles and Kitty disappeared into the bathroom for probably the next five hours. 

It was a good plan. Peter was already imagining the new few days - hanging out with Kurt, basically the coolest guy ever, playing around in the famed Danger Room, seeing some sweet mutant powers being thrown around. Plus seeing the lifestyles of the rich and famous and probably swinging from a chandelier or something. He had started to whistle as he strode down the hallway, and was still in a good mood by the time he almost ran face first into a tall man with brown hair and red sunglasses that glinted brightly in the soft lighting, holding a laundry basket. 

Scott Summers, Cyclops and the Grand Poobah of Mutantkind, stared at Peter. Peter resigned himself to his death, regretting only the fact that he hadn’t told MJ he loved her in the last five hours. Aunt May would mourn, but she would move on someday. The world would have to continue without its one Spectacular Spider-man. He wondered if it would miss him.

The face of death itself handed Peter the laundry basket. “Take these down to the washing room, don’t use too much soap. We need to start waking people up, there’s so much stuff to get done.”

Peter was left dumbfounded, holding a laundry basket, and still trying to decide if the quick release of death or the slow uncertainty of impending doom was preferable. 

By the time Peter had toddled downstairs with the laundry basket, thanking the immaculate memory that allowed him to match the shadowed lobby with the loud and brightly lit hallways, he had ran into several grunting teenagers breaking out of their rooms like bears re-emerging from hibernation. Their eyes, squinted with rebellion against the light, looked right at and through him. Peter escaped to the laundry room. 

Stuffing bright t-shirts that he did not recognize at all into the laundry machine, he silently debated the prospects of just going ahead and stepping out the door and leaving the laundry, or taking the risk of doing it all and then leaving. The pros of leaving straight out is that by taking the time to finish this he could be detected five times over. The downside is that Scott Summers might recognize him at the door as The Boy Who Did Not Do the Laundry As I Asked and ban him from mutant-related spaces forever, and never let Kitty be his Groomswoman of Honor. It was a Catch-22 of pissing off a man who could shoot lasers from his eyeballs. 

Peter was man enough to admit when he was afraid of another man, even a man who as not a supervillain (probably) and not planning to kill him (at this moment). He had met Captain America before, which was incredibly nerve-wracking, but it was more awkward and more dazzling than anything else. Captain America was the kind of nice guy who you never knew if he actually liked you because he was nice to everybody. He’d also met Iron Man, who was similar in the sense that because he treated everybody like he hated them and lived to ridicule their peasant lives you could never actually tell if he disliked you or not. Somewhat frighteningly, Peter had the sneaking suspicion Iron Man had actually liked him. He had threatened to kidnap him so he could use him as an Igor-like underling, “only with less hunchbacks and more adorable web slinging ways.” He had met the Fantastic Four, which was more like briefly saying hi to your friend’s parents as you dashed to his room, but still. Spider-man was a bit of a loner because everyone seemed to think Peter was a bit creepy, which, unfair guys. He was even friends with Daredevil, if Daredevil could be accurately determined to have friends. 

The X-Men were slightly different, in the sense that they were the only organization called a terrorist group more than he was. People didn’t know them. People didn’t like that they didn’t know them and so disliked them. There were a lot of bills trying to be pushed through to limit mutant rights. Someday one of them would be pushed through, and someday the X-Men would stop tolerantly playing along with the concept of legal and illegal and begin shifting into the territory of right and wrong. Peter knew better than most that those two could be mutually exclusive. 

There was nothing anybody could do. Nobody could prosecute them for doing anything more than other superheroes did, and if they wanted to make the X-Men illegal they would have to make any superhero illegal. Nobody could prosecute them for all sticking around and living in the same house together, and most were under the opinions that they were glad they were contained to one Westchester County where nobody else had to deal with them. Westchester County objected to this, but they seemed to be outvoted. It was difficult to make people simply go away, but it wasn’t difficult to try. It was even easier to ignore. 

Every mutant rallied under the flag of the X-Men. They wore surreptitious Xs under their clothing, sewn into the inner pocket of their jackets and dangled on jewelry. Peter had met one mutant who hid one on a tattoo sleeve. They were a uniting force, and to destabilize the X-Men would produce an uncomfortable martyr. And Cyclops, who had made more than one incredible speech on television among the burning wreckage of a supervillain who would have murdered the earth if the X-Men hadn’t saved them, was the de facto leader. Who had just told him to do laundry. 

Peter was doing the laundry. 

The small dining room, in comparison with the terrifyingly formal dining room that looked like a place where a CEO would eat and have distant, stilted conversations with his son that he never saw. The small dining room was somewhat clean, as it was fairly early and the dishes had obviously been done last night, but as Peter saw more and more teenagers sidle in he tried to press himself against the wall and out of sight. On second thought, he forced himself to stand normally in front of the basket, doing laundry like nobody’s business, just look at me doing chores like you mutant folk. 

A guy with spiky blonde and red dyed hair was clambering onto the countertops for the best cereal as the guy below him tried to push him off so he could get some bananas. A smaller kid who couldn’t have been any older than twelve was drinking a glass of milk with one hand and pulling on a jumpsuit with the other. They were all throwing on jumpsuits - hopping on one leg, zipping up the back, straightening their collars. It was like seeing a model put on her makeup, or an actress under natural lighting with a genuine smile. 

The kitchen door slammed open and all three teenagers startled guiltily, the boy rubbing off a milk moustache. A girl was standing at the entryway scowling, hands propped up on her hips. “You’re five minutes later for the room, you guys, hurry!”

“Can’t we eat - “

The girl pointed a finger out into the hallway, and oh god it was Marvel Girl. Real life Marvel Girl, there, with red hair, standing in the same room as him. Peter found himself shrinking against the wall. Marvel Girl had once lifted a plane into the air with her brain. Marvel Girl had once fought this guy who was trying to kill the world again or something in some kind of epic brain battle and then killed him, with her brain. Marvel Girl could read your thoughts. Trying not to think about Marvel Girl reading your thoughts was a lot like not thinking about a pink elephant, e.g. you are thinking of one right now. 

Marvel Girl, apparently, did not care. She jabbed her finger through the door. “Out!”

The teenagers scrambled out, and Peter was left alone in the kitchen and, he suspected, the house. Apparently Marvel Girl had not lowered herself to notice mere humans (probably) like Peter. Thank god. 

Well, if this wasn’t the perfect time to sneak out no time was. Peter looked back down at the laundry. There was a lot of it. A nearby dryer had beeped and there were clearly fluffy, dry clothes inside. Peter looked at that too. He didn’t know if doing those counted as doing the laundry and if Scott would get angry that he didn’t. He didn’t want to take that risk. 

Peter started folding the other clothing. 

By the time that the Danger Room session was clearly done - and Peter was so glad Kitty had described this otherwise he would be deeply confused - Peter was only halfway through the towels and realizing that he had grossly underestimated the level of laundry forteen teenagers and three adults could produce. He realized this as a tidal wave of teenagers burst into the kitchen, laughing and sweating as they clamored as one for food. 

Peter was a superhero, and a natural at disguise. Plus, he was hungry. Really hungry. He put down the towels and moved to grab himself some cereal. 

He reached for the same box of Lucky Charms another guy did, both turning to look at each other simultaneously. They locked eye contact, and Peter refused to break down. If this is how he died this is how he died. 

“Dude,” the guy said, “this is clearly my cereal.”

“Can’t we both have it?” Peter asked, astounded at his own audacity.

“Oh, well, clearly, if you want, yeah totally,” the guy said, amazingly passive aggressive. He shoved the box out. “Here, pour the first bowl. Now like I explode a thousand calories in a controlled rocket blast every time I have to catch Ray from falling from a metal trapeze bar again.”

Peter slowly poured the cereal into a bowl, maintaining eye contact. 

He grabbed a banana from the counter, settling down into an inauspicious chair near where Kitty had already placed her things. Hopefully she would deflect attention, then she could phase him out and they never had to speak of this again. 

The twelve year old boy from earlier slid into the seat next to him, staring at him with wide eyes. Which wouldn’t have been so weird, had Peter not been watching the twelve year old boy put a toaster waffle in an industrial size toaster. And another one stirring some orange juice. 

Peter looked down at the kid again. This had to be Multiple Man. Multiple Boy. Multiple Kid. He looked so much older on television. He was wearing a Super Mario Brothers t-shirt. 

“Have I seen you before?” the kid asked, playing with his spoon. 

“Uh,” Peter said, “Yeah. Yep.”

“Oh.” The boy squinted at him again. Peter began sweating. “Are you new?”

“Yeah, that’s me. Kind of new.” 

The boy squinted further. “Did you come in last week? Something was going on last week. The guys were throwing a party but they didn’t want me hanging around.”

“It was my party. Obviously.”

One of the copies of the kid put down two waffles and a small condiment cup of syrup, scowling mightily. “Don’t say I never do anything for you.” He jerked a thumb at Peter. “Who’s this guy?”

“Oh, he’s new,” the boy said sagely. “They held that party for him, remember?”

The copy’s face cleared up. “Oh, yeah, I remember now. Do you want a waffle?”

Peter perked up. “Yeah, totally!”

“Too bad.”

The copy vanished in a poof of sass. 

“Sorry he’s such a jerk,” the boy said, shaking his head sadly. “I don’t know what gets into them sometimes.”

A very quiet scream came from directly behind Peter, and he and the boy twisted around to see Kitty standing behind them. She was covered in sweat and some of her high ponytail appeared to be singed, dressed like most of the others in some running shorts and a tank top. It was probably the least put together Peter had ever seen her, but that probably wasn’t why she was so horrified. 

Peter waved weakly. The kid beamed. “Hey, Kitty! Peter was telling me about waffles.”

“I was?”

The kid nodded sagely. “The dupe was being a jerk, it was funny.” 

Kitty hadn’t stopped looking horrified. “Peter, what are you doing here?”

“He lives here,” the kid explained somewhat condescendingly. “Don’t you remember that party?”

“What party?”

“The party last week.”

Kitty looked confused. “The one we didn’t let you into because we were - uh, we were staying up too late?”

The kid beamed. “Yeah, that one!”

“Kitty, please sit down and act natural.”

Kitty sat down, but did not act natural. She was still looking around frantically, searching for any accusing eyes directed at Peter. “Did Scott let you stay? Why would he ever let you stay? What did you say to him? Peter!”

A copy of the little boy set down three glasses of orange juice in front of them, smiling toothily. “Here you go, Jamie!”

Jamie gave the copy a thumbs up. “Thanks, Dupe Jamie!”

“Oh my god.” Kitty slumped in her seat. “Nobody noticed, did they.”

Peter sipped at his orange juice. “Nobody noticed.”

“Oh my god.”

“Hey Jamie, this orange juice is really good.”

Jamie beamed. “Thanks, Peter!”

“No problem.”

Peter took a second to count the number of people at the table. There were at least ten, with a few more milling around in the kitchen and talking. He didn’t recognize all of them, as the X-Men generally all looked the same when they were fighting baddies, but he did manage to pick out Rogue. Nightcrawler - Kurt -  was a little hard to miss. He was balancing five oranges on the tip of one deformed finger and trying to keep them away from a blonde girl. Scott Summers appeared to be reading a newspaper. 

The brown haired resentful boy was still glaring at Peter.

“Can’t believe you tried to take my cereal.”

Peter stuck out his tongue. “It’s everyone’s cereal.”

Kitty looked mortified. “Sam, Jesus, shut up.”

“I’m allowed to defend my cereal, Kitty!”

“It’s only your cereal because nobody else likes that crap.”

Peter spooned some more of the cereal into his mouth, looking superior. 

The bickering flew over his head as he tried to bend over his food in peace. So far he had caught arguments about someone’s failed catch in the Danger Room, what they wanted for Christmas, how Scott was making them do way too many chores, if Captain America or Iron Man would win in a fight (Captain America if he was morally correct, Iron Man if Captain America was morally wrong, so basically Captain America), and how either of them would lose a fight against the X-Men either way. Somebody really, really hated the Frosty the Snowman Song and wanted everyone to know it. The table was laden under the multitude of bowls, cartons of milk, scattered waffles studded with frozen blueberries and chocolate chips, tubs of creamy butter and bottles of cheap syrup. There were slight scorch marks on the table Peter was sitting at. Someone had cracked open a tupperware container of leftover corn on the cob and some were slathering butter on that and pouring chilli flakes on top. 

Storm was eating her granola serenely. She looked up and made clear eye contact with Peter. Peter froze. Storm looked amused and went back to her granola. 

Eventually the table started to leak away, dishes poured into the sink and arguments carrying over into other rooms. A small resentful crew of teenagers were left to man the kitchen and scrub each dish, sticking the food into an industrial-size refrigerator and turning the water into steam in an industrial sink. 

Kitty grabbed his hand and towed him away, dragging him up the stairs until they retreated into the sanctity of her room. She locked the door, pressing herself up against it and glaring at Peter. She was clearly still hung over. 

“What the hell was that?”

Peter threw his hands up. “I was ambushed! Your terrifying brother gave me a laundry basket and told me to go do laundry. What, like I was going to say no? To Scott Summers?”

Kitty still looked mulish, but placated. “I guess not. But why didn’t he throw you out on your ass?”

“I don’t think he recognized that he didn’t recognize me.” Peter paused a beat. “I mean, there are, like, fifteen of you. If I were him I wouldn’t be able to keep track.”

The girl had settled down slightly, crossing her arms. “I wouldn’t believe you if it wasn’t for that fact that we accidentally left Roberto behind in Canada, like, twice. I still don’t entirely believe you. Why didn’t you just duck out while we were in the Danger Room?”

“His instructions were unclear! Did he want me to do some of the laundry? Just the basket? Fold and put away? I didn’t want him to resent me for the rest of his life, remembering me forever as the guy who snuck into his teenage sister’s room, got her drunk, and passed out and then ate his food.”

“That’s exactly what you did.”

“You encouraged me!”

“Oh my god, Peter, stop panicking.”

“I’m not panicking,” Peter said, panicking. “Can’t I just leave now?”

Kitty walked over and sat down on her bed, crossing her legs and looking contemplative. “You know, you would still have to wade through a sea of teenagers hanging out in the living room messing around. The Gamecube’s down there so there’s going to be at least six people. I think they were talking about a Melee tournament, so I think practically everybody’s going to be there. Amara’s really vicious and everyone’s going to be trying to unseat her throne.” She paused. “I think we’re safe from Rogue? Rogue hates leaving her room.”

There was a knock on the door. Peter and Kitty whirled around, Kitty jumping off her bed. “Kitty, did I leave my hairbrush in your room?”

The voice was ridiculously southern, and vaguely familiar. “Shit, it’s Rogue.”

“Are you serious!” Peter’s voice was becoming increasingly squeaky. Kitty clamped a hand over his mouth. He licked the hand. Kitty just phased through it, the jerk. 

“No!” Kitty called out, “sorry!”

“You didn’t even look!”

“It’s not here!”

“Did you check under the bed?”

“Yes!”

“In the last five seconds?”

“God!” Kitty stomped exaggeratingly to her bed. Peter made as if to roll under the bed and maybe hide against the wall, but Kitty made an abortive movement. In a whisper she said, “Wait, I have an idea. Play it cool.”

Kitty wrenched the door open as Peter sat on the bed in a way that was probably very cool and very casual. He could be casual. Rogue stepped into the room, a pasty girl with a single streak of white hair and loose sweatpants and a t-shirt. She turned from scowling at Kitty to surprise at Peter. He waved again, even more awkwardly.

“Who’s this?”

“Peter, duh.” Kitty rolled her eyes. “Go ahead and look for your hairbrush, I have no idea where it is.”

Rogue hadn’t stopped giving Peter the fish eye. “I ain’t ever seen him ‘round afore.”

Kitty kept on rolling her eyes, in vain hope that Rogue would eventually drop the question. “Honestly, Rogue, he lives here.”

“Really?” Rogue turned to Kitty in surprise, eyebrows shooting up. It honestly said a lot that the statement wasn’t met with outright denial. “Since when?”

“The party, remember?”

Rogue looked dubious. “What does the party have to do with it?”

Kitty was making a herculean effort to make her voice and entire demeanor as ‘well, duh’ as possible. Being Kitty and somewhat of a valley girl, she was extremely good at it. Peter was so proud of her. “The entire reason we had that party's ‘cause Scott and the Professor left, remember? To go get Peter?”

“Oh, yeah!” The goth’s face didn’t lit up, as it was probably fundamentally incapable, but she did relax. “Yeah, ah remember Scott talking about that. Cannot believe ah forgot. Sorry, Peter.”

“It’s, ah, no problem,” Peter said weakly. He couldn’t believe they were all buying this. 

“And you were at breakfast too. Well, what’s ya power?”

“Excuse me?”

The girl waved her hand vaguely. “Ya know, ya mutation? What can ya do? I can copy powers, memories, ya name it. Don’t touch me, man, I can’t control it. You’d be in for a worlda trouble.” 

That was...extremely disturbing, but Peter shrugged. Kitty was facepalming in the background and seemed to be silently praying for help. Peter leapt up off the bed and, in one smooth motion, jumped three feet for the ceiling and hung there with his fingertips. Rogue looked politely impressed. 

“Cool. That it?”

“That’s it?” Peter quirked an eyebrow, swinging himself so he could settle on his haunches on the ceiling. “I can also lift a truck. Wanna see that?”

“I dunno,” Rogue said mischeviously, “Can ya do it on the ceiling?”

“Hard time getting the truck up there.”

“You’d be real, real surprised.”

While Peter had been showing off to Rogue Kitty had been frantically searching for Rogue’s hairbrush, shoving it into her hands and pushing her out the door. “Thanks a lot, Rogue, bye, see you!” Kitty paused for a second, pushing halfheartedly as Rogue ground her heels into the floor. “Actually. Peter hasn’t really been showing a lot of people his powers yet. Could you mention it at the Smash Bros tournament? Thanks a lot, you’re a dear, ciao!”

Then she shut the door. 

Peter didn’t move from the ceiling. It made him feel safe. “What was that all about?”

“People’ll never guess anything if they know you’re a mutant. You’re basically home free.” Kitty paused, slow realization dawning across her face. “You’re home free! If you’re a mutant, nobody’ll ever suspect anything!”

“What.”

“I mean it!” Kitty began pacing the floor. “Mutants live here. Anybody who lives here is a mutant. Mutants have weird and awesome powers. You have weird and awesome powers. You’re a mutant. Mutants live here. You live here!” She held up a finger, triumphant. “Transitive law of using your superpowers to infiltrate my house. Let’s see how far we can take this.”

“That is never a good sentence to say, ever, at all.”

“Shut up, it’ll be funny.”

“Oh, yeah, I live to amuse you. Want me to do a backflip? Make some balloon animals?”

“Look, Peter.” Kitty stopped placing, putting her hands on her hips. “Everybody assumes everybody else knew you got here. If Jamie knows how you got here, he’ll act like you belong here with Tabby. If Tabby acts natural because she’s under the impression from Jamie that you were here all along, then if Amara hears her best friend talking about him then there’s no way Tabby could be wrong. This is exactly how false information is spread through the media. One faulty source and everyone passes that source around until we’re all convinced in each other’s conviction. This’ll work.”

“When you become President, can I be First Spider-Man?”

“You can if you go along with this.The only real problem here is Scott and Jean, who actually have two brain cells to rub together and realize that Xavier told them nothing about this.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Oh, great, the only person I’m in danger of pissing off is the one person I absolutely cannot afford to piss off, because he will eat me. Why all of this trouble? Why can’t you just say we had an accidental sleep over? I am engaged, your honor is safe with me.”

The laundry room conundrum returned to Peter as he watched Kitty bite her lip. “Scott doesn’t exactly let unsupervised non-mutants into the house anymore. I mean, he lets us bring our friends over. But we don’t have a lot of non-mutant friends. We can’t throw parties anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Last time we did someone tried to sneak a bomb in.” Her voice was flat, recounting the memory as if it happened on the news. “It used to be fun, throwing parties while Jean and Scott were away. Kurt and I would always organize them, and we could pretend to be real people for a while. I can’t really blame Scott for banning them, it was just too dangerous. But he’s gotten kind of...I don’t know. He’s just really overprotective. It just sucks when he has to protect us from the whole world, you know?”

No, Peter didn’t really know. He never could. As ashamed as he was to admit it, you didn’t overcome lifelong prejudices in a day. Kitty had really freaked him out the first time they had met, but they had just clicked so easily it was as if she wasn’t even a mutant. Her powers just became another thing about her, another thing to connect them. But the X-Mansion, the Danger Room, the teeming mass of teenagers who you were incidentally frightened to death that they would discover you, was so purely mutant it was hard not to feel uncomfortable. Peter, frankly, felt very uncomfortable. Like he was infiltrating aliens or something stupid like that. People knew that they were just regular teenagers, but Peter had no idea that he didn’t know until he saw them. And Scott would kill them if he found a non-mutant in his house. Was this how it felt like to be white in the 1800s or something?

It sucked. 

“Well,” Peter said finally, “I accepted my inevitable mortality years ago. Let’s do it.”

Kitty brightened. Maybe she missed having friends too. “Let’s do it.”

By the time they made it downstairs for Super Smash Bros, the tournament was just starting up and Peter managed to effectively bully a protesting boy named Roberto away from his spot under the claims that the new guy should be indoctrinated into the Super Smash ways. Ray, with the blond and red hair and the apparent god of Smash Bros, looked overjoyed that there was more fresh meat to kill. The fact that said fresh meat had apparently been here for a week and had apparently shown no interest in Smash Bros before was entirely unremarked upon. Maybe they just thought he had been unpacking. 

They were on the second round of the tournament, with the first round being the site of a horrific slaughter by Jamie’s Ice Climbers, when Jean Gray walked in and assigned a long list of Christmas chores to everyone. Peter, torn from his safety net of Kitty, was forced into baking duty as he meticulously made a half dozen pans of shortbread. Peter, having been cooking for his aunt for a significant portion of his life, was quickly promoted to chief god king baker and had all of the difficult mixing thrown at him. Amara wandered through, lighting each fireplace with a flick of her hand and a sullen expression. A kid named Bobby who Peter had ran into several times as Spider-Man was meticulously creating a small gingerbread house with a gigantic X stuck at the top, carefully freezing the icing at the corners of the houses to make it stick together well. 

When he stepped out into the living room Jean Gray was raising one hand into the air, a look of intense concentration on her face. Peter was hit by a flash of instinctive fear, fighting the urge to duck underneath a table for its slight protection against the incredible power that had fought the Hulk to a standstill. He watched, dumbfounded, as garlands rose into the air, draping themselves across the cavernous ceiling  and curling around banisters. Her eyes were closed, so Peter darted across the living room to step carefully over teenagers sweeping, mopping, dusting, and lugging down boxes of decorations from the attic. All they needed were the Whos down in Whoville singing their Christmas song, except for one piece

Peter stopped a scowling girl with wood polish. “Hey, when is the tree getting here?”

“Logan’s bringing it back with him.” She adjusted her gigantic sunglasses, worn indoors for some reason. “Jean said he wasn’t allowed to cut one from Canada but I’m not sure if he’s going to listen or not.”

“When he’s coming back?”

“I dunno. Next week? We do it the night before. Keeps them healthy, ya know. We have to have advance warning for the annual Christmas death match, though.”

“Oh yeah, of course, the annual Christmas death match, how could I forget.”

The girl rolled her eyes. Peter thought he remembered someone calling her Jubilee. “To see who puts the star on the tree. You’re such a dweeb.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“You can climb up walls, right? Can you get that molding up there?”

The ability to climb up walls was apparently shared only between him and Kurt, so once Scott caught wind of a teenage boy crawling along the walls to fix an askew christmas light he was quickly called down. Peter was so startled he almost fell of the wall. This was it. The gig was up. His brief attempt at inter-species relations was completely ruined.

The terrifying man threw him a large ream of christmas lights without looking up from his clipboard. “You’re climbing walls, do the second floor foyer.”

Peter did the second floor foyer.

By the end of the day Peter collapsed on Kitty’s bed, too tired to move, as Kitty collapsed next to him.

“I’m sore in joints I never thought I’d have.”

“I think my thorax is on fire.”

Kitty threw a pillow at him. “That is literally so gross.”

“I have way more sympathy for your mad break for freedom.”

Kitty groaned, then propped herself up on her elbows. “You looked like you were having fun, though.”

Christmases at his aunt’s house were usually a really small affair. No less loving and warm, of course, but there was less frantic explosions of cheer and lights. Uncle Ben used to cut snowflakes with him, holding him by the waist and lifting him up until he could hang them on the ceiling. The last two haven’t been the same, every attempt at happiness being forced and tinged with sadness, trying to cut through the hole he left with specials and renewed appreciation for each other. It was a lot, but they couldn’t replace what was gone. 

When Peter had suggested the road trip, Aunt May had gotten so excited about the prospect of visiting her sister’s and seeing her mother for Christmas that Peter had suggested that she stick around there. Maybe more people in a new setting, a setting that had never seen Uncle Ben, would cheer her up. Peter hoped it did. He knew she wanted him there, though, but if she would be happier - 

“Yeah, I was.” Peter shook his head, throwing the thoughts away. He would get back before Christmas. No way he could hold out for an entire week. “What are you going to do when I have to get back home and am inevitably found out for a liar and a crook?”

Kitty shrugged, flopping onto her back to match him, twin starfishes spread in exhaustion. “I dunno. Get yelled at? You’ll be long gone, so Scott can’t physically murder you. It’s chill, at worst he’ll put me on Danger Room duty.”

“That’s not a happy sounding duty.”

“Trust me, we’re in too deep now. It’s better than the alternative.”

In too deep described Peter’s lifestyle. He could relate. 

The next few days flew by in a haze just like that. A rush of cleaning, scrubbing, baking, Smash Bros tournaments, being told he was too much of a newbie for the Danger Room thank  _ god _ , and arm wrestling Robert and Sam who somehow would not stop insisting on it despite him beating them with one pinky five different times. Tabby kept on trying to set his hair on fire, which Peter did not appreciate at all. Jubilee was inscrutable behind her bug-eyed sunglasses but after Peter helped her out with enough chores she began passing him the bacon without him asking for it. And breakfast after breakfast, dinner after dinner, Scott Summers and Jean Gray did not notice. 

Or at least, Peter thought as he watched Jean wink at him after he helped her clean the gutters on the shed, didn’t care. 

Scott, as Kitty explained between break times when they were all sitting around drinking lemonade a Jamie made, was a little oblivious at the best of times. Like, he didn’t realize Jean liked him back for a solid two years kind of oblivious. She was leaving wedding catalogues on every coffee table in the mansion and he still hadn’t noticed. Peter didn’t know what was up with all of these superheroes and marrying ludicrously early on, but he knew why he was willing to jump into it with MJ. Well, she was the light and love of his life and they were soulmates, but besides that Peter honestly didn’t know how long he was going to live. 

It wasn’t a good reason to get married - like, what if he didn’t die and they hated each other - but a divorce was a lot cheaper than a lifelong regret. Maybe Jean felt the same way. She knew strange things sometimes - ducking to catch a plate a minute before it fell, answering a question before someone had asked it. Kitty looked worried about it, said it was a pretty recent development and more proof that Jean was growing exponentially more powerful and they didn’t know why. They tried hard to keep it under wraps the same way they tried to keep Rogue’s lack of control over her WMD skin secret, but the X-Men weren’t always as well put together as they appeared. It would have worried him, freaked him out and alienated him, if he didn’t know them personally. 

“I mean, with anyone else I’m not sure about, but we’re talking Scott here. Reigning king of obliviousness. We’re doing okay.”

Peter had surreptitiously moved into one of the empty rooms down the hall and Kitty had lent him one of her empty suitcases to make it look like he had actual possessions instead of clothing hastily borrowed from Roberto. He was no longer collapsing into his bed out of exhaustion, but was still sleeping like a rock every night, when a sudden creak woke him up. He sprung upwards, ready to jump out of bed, when he realized his spidey sense hadn’t even gone off and that there were five startled boys in his room. 

Then he also remembered that he only had boxers on. “If nobody’s firebombing us I really don’t care,” Peter said bluntly. “Can I go back to sleep?”

Kurt stepped forward, looking somewhat apologetic but not really. He gave an enthusiastic thumbs up. “It’s a special time in a young mutant man’s life. It’s time for...the X-Men Initiation Ritual! Boy’s edition. The girls beat up muggers, I think.”

“Oh,” Peter drawled, “great. Can’t wait to write home to my aunt about what I’m getting up to in summer camp.”

“This really would have been funner if you hadn’t heard us,” Sam complained from the back.

“I would have thought this specially trained combat team of X-Teenagers would have been better at stealth, my mistake.”

Kurt  rose up both hands, frantically shushing them. “We’re going to wake up Tabby, guys. Roberto, Sam, grab his legs.”

“I’m up, I’m up!”

Peter resentfully followed the small team out of the mansion, uncomfortably reminded about how he and Kitty snuck in in the first place. Their security really should be better. Of course, he had seen Kitty thumb through at least five different locks and pressure sensors so hopefully they wouldn’t all be murdered in their sleep anytime soon, but Peter still worried. It’s more than he would have done last week. “Aren’t you just going to stick me in the Danger Room?”

Bobby snorted. “Please, what’s initiation-ey about the Danger Room? We do that every day. Besides, Scott said we aren’t allowed to throw people in there at stage six because that kills them and then he’d kill us.”

“Oh,” Peter said weakly, “nice to know.”

They piled silently into a car as Roberto gunned the engine. All of the boys looked solemn and serene, the adult picture broken only by the stifled giggles. Peter felt tired, but a little excited. He had never done anything like this before. There was an inclusive feeling about the entire male population ganging up on you. 

He poked Sam in the leg, who had forgiven him for the cereal incident the first day. Probably. “Am I finally going to see you guys use your powers?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “You see us use our powers all the time.”

“Well, yeah, but not in a cool kind of way.”

“How many people can get into a flying race?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Peter said airily, “I’ve seen a lot.”

“Man, you are so going down.”

Or maybe he hadn’t forgiven him. 

By the time Roberto had finally turned off the engine Peter had no better an idea of where they were besides ‘some place even darker than the really dark path we drove before’. The other guys silently lead Peter off the road and through some wild trees, into what quickly turned into a forest. Peter was born and bred in the city and he wasn’t really keen on trapezing through random forests at night with a small, ambiguously malicious group of mutants he had known for four days. He really hoped they didn’t think it was funny to ditch him here and let him find his own way home. Or to get into an underground fighting ring style death match. Or to, like, summon demons. Well, Kurt was already here, so probably not the last one. 

By the time Peter realized guiltily he was falling back on old stereotypes he had begun to hear the faint roar of water below them. He realized they were standing on a cliff, a large lake of water stirring beneath them. It was a relatively peaceful lake, actually, so it was unlikely they actually did want to kill him. The day continued to lighten, the harsh blanket of night slowly receding into the thin gauze of dawn. They continued to the edge of the cliff, farther and farther as the sun made its final grapple for ascendency. Peter saw the other boys checking their watches, muttering about being right on time. 

They finally reached the edge of the cliff and the boys spread out into a loose line in front of Peter. They were all pretending to look fairly severe, which was pretty hilarious as he had seen Bobby scream at a mouse yesterday. Dawn was breaking behind Peter. 

Kurt cleared his throat, taking his position as probably the oldest X-Man in the group. “In this time of heroes and turmoil, mutants rise in the night. We have always been here. We will never go away. Our time has come and the new age is dawning on mutantkind and man. Do you accept your role as an X-Man?”

It was probably too late to realize that Peter was not, in fact, an X-Man, had never been an X-Man, was probably not even an actual mutant (was he?) and that everybody here tonight was here under false pretenses. It was too late to realize it but Peter did anyway, a hot flash of panic and guilt twisting his stomach and rising in this throat. 

“Guys...guys, I-”

Sam scoffed. “No backing out now, Pete, you already agreed.”

“I did?”

“You did,” Kurt said, looking slightly annoyed. “Now just say yes.”

“I didn’t really-”

“Sounds like a yes to me!” Ray cried, clapping his hands. “Stop being a sissy, Pete, we’re going to throw you off this cliff anyway.”

“What?!”

“We will throw you off this cliff even harder if you do not get on with this very important,” Kurt said, glaring at Sam, “ceremony.” He turned to Peter, looking happier. “If you care to help mutants, to protect the people, and to be hated for the rest of your life, say yes. They will always hate us, Peter, we cannot help it. One day they will not. One day they will look at us and say - yes! Yes! We do not do it for recognition or praise. We do it for the yes. Say yes, Peter.”

“Yes.”

It wasn’t a lie at all. 

“Do you swear to uphold the laws of the X-Men?”

“Yes.”

“Do you swear to protect all people, everyone, even at the cost of ourselves?”

“Yes.”

“Do you swear to act as a fellow X-Man, recognize the X-Men as your brothers and sisters of heart as if they were your blood? Also, if you get crushes on one of them, make sure it’s not weird or anything?”

“Yes?”

Kurt looked around. “Can I say the prayer, please?”

“This is a non-secular ceremony!”

“Ach, whatever. You are an X-Man. Now jump off the cliff.”

“Wait, what - “

One of them wouldn’t have been able to do it, given Peter’s incredible sticking ability and super strength, but all at once they could manage it just fine. Peter felt his gut rise in the familiar sensation of rising, rising, every inch of his body joining the air - 

And the familiar sensation of falling, the swoop of his gut, the release. It was every moment of joy he’s ever had, in the air, in the space between the rise and the fall. Peter yelled, screaming in delight. 

Then he hit the water. 

It was freezing cold, piercing into his skin like a thousand tiny needles. The blue was overwhelming, his eyeballs stinging with the cold, scrubbing him dry of everything that made Peter Peter. He scrambled frantically for the surface, falling as he was rising, pushing upwards against nothing with everything he had to break - 

The air crashed against his head with an exhale, and the water released him as he broke free of the pulling current. Peter gasped and gasped, limbs trembling, upper body even colder than it was in the water. He shivered frantically, pulling into himself, wet shirt clinging to every inch of his abs. 

The water scrubbed against him, rubbing his skin raw, and the cold pierced through the water in his blood. He twisted slightly in and out of the water, pulled back and forth, and it rose up to meet him and drag him back into the bottom. He kept treading water, letting it buoy him. Peter gasped and gasped, amazed that he was still alive, mind a bright clear white. 

The sun had risen while he was fighting for the surface of the water. 

 

“So,” Peter said later that day, carefully unwrapping tissue paper from ornaments and setting them aside next to Kitty, “I may have accidentally joined the X-Men.”

The crinkly white tissue surrounding a small, happy dog was pulled off. Kitty looked uninterested. “I thought that was the whole problem.”

“I mean, ah, I took an oath.”

Her head snapped around. “They gave you the initiation ceremony?”

Peter winced. “Yeah? Do they do that to...everyone?”

Kitty cursed under her breath, ripping off tissue paper with more force than before. “Everyone who fucking shows up and says they have mutant powers and beats Roberto at Mario Kart, yeah. Dammit. That’s a binding contract, Peter.”

“Binding what what.”

“It’s, like, serious business.” 

“Five teenage boys kidnapping me from my bed and throwing me off a cliff?”

She raised an eyebrow. “What’s not serious about being thrown off a cliff?”

“Point. What do the girls do?”

“Well, they formally started the tradition after I got here. It’s a lot less casual than the boys because we don’t have to have a giant dick measuring contest about it. We just put on a lot of sunglasses and trench coats and drive around beating up muggers.”

“What, and paint each other’s toenails?”

“Nah, beating up the muggers chips nail polish like nobody’s business.” She paused contemplatively. “Fake ones dig really well into eyeballs, though.”

“That’s going on the list of sentences I never need to think about ever again. So is this like the hotel California, where I can take a creepy initiation ritual in the dead of night but I can never leave?”

“I thought you were planning on leaving the minute Scott finds out? Or preferably the minute before? An hour before that, maybe.”

“I don’t know. What if it takes until Christmas?” A horrific thought occurred to Peter. “Nobody’s bought me any Christmas presents, have they?”

“Nah, we did the nightmare of Christmas shopping days ago. It takes seriously like three days.” She unwrapped another set of glass balls, as well as a macaroni picture that just said ‘FUCK IRON MAN’. “I have seen some people panicking about what to get you so it’s not completely depressing on Christmas. I just told them you had forsaken earthly possessions for lent. They didn’t seem that convinced.”

“Lent’s in March. Wait, aren’t you Jewish?”

“Yeah, it’s actually Hannukah right now.” Peter gaped, while Kitty just shrugged. “I mean, haven’t you noticed I’ve been missing for three hours every morning and three hours every night? Me and Ben are going over to Erik’s house to celebrate. Sucks living in the world of the goyim, but since none of us really...talk to our families anymore, we have to band together like that. Plus Erik really, really, really comes after you if he thinks you aren’t observing literally every single holiday correctly. He’s like my Jewish grandpa.”

“Huh.” Peter felt weird that he didn’t know this. “Are Erik and Ben friends of yours from school?”

Kitty looked shifty. “Uh, Ben Grimm and Erik Lensherr.”

“What. The fuck.”

“He’s only like fifty percent evil these days,” Kitty protested, “he barely even kills people anymore. He just, like, burns down a lot of buildings.”

“He burnt down the New York state capitol.”

“That’s a building.”

Kitty threw up her hands, almost sending a happy santa flying. “Look, I know he’s evil! I know fifty percent evil is a lot evil. Maybe it’s more seventy five percent. I don’t know. But he takes this stuff really seriously and honestly, nobody else does. How many Jewish superheroes do you even know? I don’t exactly have a family to celebrate with anymore!”

She rubbed at her eyes, and Peter felt like a total tool. He patted her awkwardly on the back. “I’m sorry, Kitty. I’m being such a dick about this.”

She smiled back at him, slightly weaker than normal. “Trust me, calling Erik evil is more than fair. He’s just not really that bad of a person. And he makes a mean matzah ball soup.”

The image of Magneto cooking was a bit too much for Peter. He leaned back and went back to unwrapping ornaments, finally noticing the large star of david peeking out from the box. He left that one for Kitty to unwrap. 

Scott had been out running errands pretty much constantly, and Peter’s luck was holding. 

  
  


Wolverine, possibly the only Canadian American with a kill count in the quadruple digits, rolled up to the manor in a gigantic pickup truck, a sulking teenage girl, and the biggest Christmas tree Peter had ever seen. Jean levitated it out herself like it weighed as much as the garlands, and the excited mob of teenagers followed it up the stairs as it floated through the wide open double doors. This was apparently a big annual event, and everyone was passing around soda and following Scott’s semaphore instructions on prepping The Great Treeing. Wolverine, wearing flannel, a beanie, and hiking boots, patted the scowling girl next to him on the head and handed her a beer. 

Peter watched twin claws rip themselves out of her knuckles and pry the cap off. Well, that was new. He turned to Kitty. 

“Who on earth would unleash a Mini-Wolverine onto the world?”

“It was a lot more on purpose than you would think,” Kitty said darkly. “Now come on and help me grab this six pack. We’re going to have to do a lot of bribery.”

They waited until Wolverine was comfortable and relaxed, sitting in a lawn chair near the woodpile cut with Scott’s lasers and still chugging beer. His mini-me was next to him, reading a very thick book that looked suspiciously like War and Peace, except someone had taken a sharpie to the book so it read War and More War. Peter had wanted to wait until the girl was gone, but Kitty insisted that they needed her too. They had also kept Peter firmly out of sight and at least a twenty foot radius away. Kitty and Peter had talked about it. They had both honestly expected Scott to have been found out by now and were a little dumbfounded that they had gotten away with it and were continuing to get away with it. But there was absolutely no fooling Wolverine’s nose. Scott was oblivious, but if Wolverine thought Peter was up to anything at all he was literally, actually, hilariously dead. Not fun, ‘Scott’s going to yell at me for an hour’ dead, real dead. 

Swallowing his courage, and on second thought letting his courage stay where it was so it could do some good for a change, Peter and Kitty approached Wolverine holding out a six pack of beer like a wild animal. 

He grunted looking at it. “Looks like someone needs something from me.”

“You’re going to take it anyway?” Kitty asked, flashing her most adorable grin. Peter had been pretty convinced that it wouldn’t work but Kitty said that not only did Logan had a soft spot for her, he really liked beer. 

The girl looked bored already with the proceedings. “Do I need to be here.” Kitty nodded firmly. “Great.”

“Peter,” Kitty said in a falsely bright tone, “this is Logan and Laura. Logan, Laura, this is Spider-man. I think you two have met?”

Peter and Logan (it was surprisingly difficult to believe that Wolverine had a first name) looked at each other balefully. 

“That thing with the Hulk, right?” Logan asked finally. “Wouldn’t stop talking?”

“Yeah, sounds like me.”

Logan took another swig of the beer. “Huh.”

He didn’t really say anything more. 

Kitty clapped her hands. “Well, anyway, Peter’s been hanging out with us lately, possibly for the last week. It’s been great. Great time. Everyone loves him, he’s very popular.”

Logan and Laura stared uncaringly at them, an unspoken ‘so?’ hanging in the air.

“Scott has no idea because he’d kill me,” Peter said finally, deciding to be blunt. “I’m engaged so it’s not like that with Kitty. It was an accident and it got really out of control. I took some kind of oath, it was really unclear.”

Laura finally had some sort of expression on her face. “You took the oath?”

Peter rubbed the back of his neck, feeling very stupid. “They kind of kidnapped me and didn’t believe me when said I was kind of uncertain about the whole thing. And, well, I didn’t technically lie.”

Logan and Laura stared at Peter and Kitty for a long time, then stared at each other and had some kind of silent eyebrow conversation. 

Finally Logan said, “Anyone else know?”

“I’m pretty sure the adults. They aren’t morons. Nobody seems to really care?” Peter shrugged. “I don’t know why Scott’s the only one who’d care.”

Logan grunted, taking another swig of the beer. He had to have had at least three by now, and if Peter had a rather hard time getting drunk it had to be impossible for Logan. “Look, kid,” he said finally, “I can take twenty bullets and spit them out in the next ten minutes. I have seen my adorable kid over here garrote a man with her shoelace. I can afford not to care. I do it all the time. If Scott wasn’t always freaking out over everything all the time nothing’ll get done. I remember when he was a kid. It was a mess. But he can’t just turn that off. And now he’s an anal retentive, bossy kid who is the dictator of twenty children and possibly mutantkind. Damn kid’s going to get an ulcer, christ.” He paused to take another swig of his beer. “If you want to pull a fast one on Four-eyes I won’t tell on ya. It’ll be good for him to see that nothing bad’ll happen if he doesn’t micromanage it.”

Kitty and Peter breathed out twin sighs of relief. Laura didn’t look up from her book, but she said,

“So you’re a X-man now.”

“If that was a question, uh, yeah.”

She grunted, then side eyed Logan. He sighed. “Yeah, that means ya can’t kill him. Sorry, pumpkin.”

“Damn.”

She went back to the book. Kitty and Peter beat a hasty retreat. 

When they returned to the main house the Christmas tree decoration party was in full swing. Cookies were flying everywhere, popcorn was littered over every carpet, and the Charlie Brown Christmas Special was playing unheeded in the background. Scott was laughing, red sunglasses matching the red Santa hat Jean kept on trying to place on his head. Everyone was fighting over who got to place what ornament, careful of the strings of light and tinsel, and the firelight lit the twilight in a healthy glow. 

Peter sat on a couch, feeling somewhat like he was intruding. Kitty sat down next to him and squeezed his hand. She smiled at him, somewhat reassuring, kind of teasing. “I’m really glad you’re here, Pete.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Even though this started out with a hobo giving us vodka and resulted in a madcap scheme that was way more stressful than they look on television?”

“Comedy of misunderstandings.” She rested her chin in her hands, looking Jamie and his dupes fighting over a brownie. “Aren’t you wondering why nobody here is at home with their families?”

Honestly, he hadn’t. Peter shook his head mutely. 

“Nobody wants us.” She didn’t sound sad, only frank. “It’s not always as dramatic as kicking us out screaming that we’re monsters. That happens too. But a lot of people’s folks still love them. They don’t raise a kid till puberty then decide they never want anything to do with them ever again. They just...would rather they don’t have to deal with them. Let’s send them to Xavier’s. He can take care of them. They can be with people like them. They’ll be safe there. I can’t make my child safe. My child isn’t safe.”

Jubilee was snapping her fingers, watching red and green flashes of light flash in contrast with the fire. Kitty lowered her voice slightly, eyes trained on the fire. 

“My child isn’t safe to me. My child is a different species now.  _ Homo superior _ . That thing isn’t my kid anymore. They can still love their kid, Peter. They just can’t love the mutant.”

Peter reached over and placed a hand on her knee. She squeezed it tightly. “My parents still love me. They were worried about me coming here. They wanted me to have a good time. They toured the mansion and checked it out and hugged me goodbye. They just haven’t called. Haven’t invited me home. Didn’t call me to wish me Happy Hannukah.” She scrubbed at her eye again with her free hand. “This is all we have. And Peter, I don’t think you have a lot either.”

For the first time in a very long time, Peter struggled with his words. Opened his mouth, closed it again. How could he describe it? He did nothing but pity himself, try to lose his problems in the arch of flight. For every problem Spider-man solved he created two more, but he did it again and again until he was drowning under the weight of the mistakes he made so he wouldn’t have to deal with what was really wrong. 

He talked a big game about the difference between doing what is right and what is easy, but Peter didn’t know what to do if they were the same thing. Right for who? He didn’t know. 

“My aunt’s at her sister’s place. Christmas has been pretty bad since my uncle died,” Peter said. The facts were easiest. “I’ve been trying to decide this entire time what to do if Scott doesn’t figure me out through Christmas Eve. I don’t know if I’m helping my aunt or hurting her by being around. And this week has probably been one of the weirdest experiences of my life, but it’s been fun.”

Kitty squeezed his hand. “It was fun for me too. But, like, weird as fuck.”

“Oh yeah.”

“I honestly can’t believe this happened.”

“How do you think I feel? I’m going to have to put an X on my costume now.”

“The Bugle can, like, double hate you.”

“Double infinity is still infinity.”

Jamie crashed into the floor next to them, laughing as another dupe popped into existence. Probably the reason they always had five or six dupes running around is that Jamie was quite possibly the clumsiest X-Man possible. It was horribly adorable. The new dupe, lying flat on the floor, stared up at Kitty and Peter.

“Why are you two holding hands?”

“Kitty’s hand was cold,” Peter drawled. 

“That doesn’t seem right but I don’t know enough about thermodynamics to dispute it. Come help us decorate the tree!”

Peter and Kitty grinned at each other, and rose to hang an ornament on a branch as tall as they could find. 

 

Christmas Eve was the next day. There was a palpable air of excitement and happiness in the air, the labor intensive christmas decorations gleaming brightly from the banisters. Most of them had been up for weeks, with the final touches with the garlands and most of the cooking and cleaning done recently, but the sheer fact that it was Christmas Eve made the atmosphere disgustingly magical. Jamie was pretty much the happiest Peter had ever seen him. Even Tabby seemed to be excited. 

The brunch that took most of last morning to make was laid out on the table, the usual Danger Room session forgone for the day. Everyone had been begging for the food to begin until Scott and Jean began handing them plates to set out just to keep them busy, and everyone had been eagerly sitting at the table and staring at their forks until it was finally all set out. 

Kurt lead a short and heartfelt grace. Peter closed his eyes and thought of his father, who he had heard was religious. 

Everyone opened their eyes and stared expectantly at Scott. He was smiling. “Okay guys, it’s finally here. You all did a really great job getting the place cleaned up.”

“Totally wasn’t necessary,” someone muttered. 

“Cleaning it for New Years would have been necessary if we didn’t do it now,” Scott said brightly. It was bright like the sun: a burning ball of gas and flame. “So if we have any other complaints for the review board?”

The table was silent. 

“Excellent. I’m very proud of all of you and I’m proud to be an X-Man. Let’s eat - wait, who are you?”

Silence descended upon the table. Peter’s heart clipped at a choking rhythm. Everyone was staring at Scott weirdly. Kitty had her hand over her mouth.

Sam looked around. “Wait, who am I?” Peter grew dangerously hopeful.

Scott pointed with his fork at Peter, crushing his dreams. “No, that kid. The one who’s been...here the whole time...wait, who are you!”

Rogue rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Scott, it’s Peter. He’s been here for ages. Remember the party?”

“What party!”

Kitty began slinking down in her seat.

“The party that we all threw while you were off with Xavier grabbing the kid, duh.” Tabby slouched in her seat. “Can we eat now?”

“That’s not what we were doing! Xavier and I were investigating a lead on Sabertooth in Iceland! Wait, what party?”

“What kid, what party, honestly dude. Get a grip.” Ray waved his fork in the air. “Can we please have food now.”

“No, no, everybody wait up.” Scott put his fork down, looking panicked, squinting at Peter as if Peter would magically make sense. “The party I believe. I saw the bottles in the trash, guys, I’m not stupid. But I would really remember dropping this guy off at the mansion. What’s even your name?”

The table turned as once and looked at Scott like he was crazy. Peter felt like he was going crazy. He had been crazy the whole time thinking this was a good idea. 

“Uh,” Peter said. 

“Seriously, Scott?” Jubilee demanded. “Like, he was playing Smash Bros with us. I mean, he sucks - “

“Hey!”

“But he’s been here this whole time. You gave him a list of chores. You’re being weird.”

Scott was beginning to get a pinched look on his face. “Being here the whole time has nothing to do with whether I not I actually brought him home.”

The table was silent, everyone looking at each other and questioning reality. 

“If the belief is known to all in place of the reality, does the reality truly exist?” Jamie asked philosophically. “Or is it an artificial concept that does matter if it is treated as if it were true? The chair on the stage is playing a chair on a stage, it is not a true chair. But it is a real chair in the eyes of the actors, characters and audience - so what is the difference?”

“Jamie,” Scott said, voice very strained. “If this is a random child we picked up off the street then I would say it matters just a little.”

Rahne raised her hand. “Peter’s actually a mutant, guys, we’re being crazy. I’ve seen him lift a truck. With my own eyes, Scott.”

The table nodded. They had actually, with their own eyes, seen Peter lift a truck. Peter was still proud of himself about that. Scott looked like he really, really doubted that. 

“Want to see me stick to the ceiling?” Peter asked helpfully. 

“He can do that too,” Kurt added. “Why is it so crazy a mutant is living here?”

“Can we please just eat,” Amara said. 

Robert, Ray, and Sam were looking at each other. “We definitely gave him the X-Men initiation ritual, man. We were all there. Scott’s crazy.”

“I’m in favor of eating,” Bobby said, “and pretending Scott’s not crazy, which isn’t a good look for our lord and dictator. It calls your entire authority into question, man. Your polls can’t afford that.”

Ororo was looking disapproving with her lips pursed, but her shoulders were also shaking from trying not to laugh. 

Logan was drinking his beer Kitty gave him and pointedly remaining silent. 

Jean was looking around, intently gazing into the eyes of everyone at the table including a Peter who was trying very, very hard to play it cool. 

Finally, the red haired girl seemed to make a decision. She smiled gently and sweetly at Scott, an expression that screamed completely fake to everybody except Scott. “Oh, honey, sorry for not telling you,” she said. “I picked up Peter on the quinjet after dropping you and Xavier off at Iceland. By the way you and everyone else was acting, I assumed you already knew.”

Scott’s cheeks reddened, clearly very embarrassed. “Oh. Uh, sorry guys. Sorry Peter. I...didn’t notice you were here for the last week.”

The table broke out into uproarious laughter, and took it as their silent cue to eat and their very verbal cue to make fun of Scott about this forever. 

Kitty was gaping at Peter. Peter was gaping at Kitty. 

Something passed between them, a hysterical joy at life. It could be so crazy sometimes, so funny and surreal. Peter had been unknowing and somewhat knowingly adopted by fifteen crazy mutants under completely false pretenses and Jamie had just implied that the false pretenses of belonging had been replaced by the very real reality of belonging. Christmas Eve brunch was on the table before him, Christmas beyond that. 

He met Kitty’s eyes from beyond the table, and they smirked as one. He mouthed ‘delinquent’ at her, and she mouthed it back with a wink. 

Peter settled back, and contented himself with shoving as much food into his mouth as possible. 

  
  
  


Peter made his escape silently after that, deciding he has pressed his luck far enough. Kitty was telling the others that he was visiting his elderly aunt for the rest of the holiday, which was extremely true. After that - well, he was pretty sure they would come up with the most obvious conclusion to them and stick with it. Maybe a transfer to Alpha Flight. Maybe a long term mission. Maybe they would just realize he was Spider-Man, that he didn’t actually live with them, and that somehow he was an X-Man at the same time. It seemed to make sense to them. It seemed to be as simple as that to a lot of them. 

Kitty hugged him before he left. “This has been totally crazy, Peter.”

He hugged her back tightly. “Way too much work for some alcohol.”

“Alcohol was worth it.”

“The rest was too.”

Kitty smiled gently at him. “You know, I feel like we’re much better friends now.”

“If I was understanding the life oath I took before being tossed off a cliff earlier, I think we’re technically related unless I get a crush on you and it becomes weird.”

“Good thing you’re engaged.”

“Good luck with MJ as a sister in law.”

“She’ll be delighted. Think we can sneak her in as an X-Man too?”

Peter groaned. “Please, let’s never do this again.”

Kitty pecked him on the cheek. They were standing on the bus stop, the small car Kitty had pilfered to drop him off idling as they hugged their goodbyes. The bus looked as all busses did: slightly sad, slightly hopeful. Smells like McDonald’s. “But I’ll see you again.”

Peter saluted, jumping backwards and walking backwards to the bus. “Just call, and I’ll always answer.”

“Call what?” Kitty was smiling brilliantly. 

Peter pulled a dramatic pose, smiling just as wide. “To me, my X-Men!”

Kitty was still waving and laughing as the bus began its slow ascent into New York. 


End file.
